OU Thief

[Isa]

I'd like to discuss the merits of Thief and the best/worst targets for it. I've always had a hard time choosing which mons that'd lose their Lefties, since offensive mons without recovery like having them to get some kind of recovery, whereas Pokémon employing Rest (and Milk Drink/Softboiled/Recover too I guess) wanna avoid some specific 2/3HKOs that Leftovers greatly aid with. The Pokémon I imagine would be least impacted by Thiefery would be those that intend to go out with a bang very fast either way, e.g. Explosion users, but on the other hand...Exeggutor switching in on Skarmory feels risky, Steelix badly wants leftovers to not get destroyed by spikes + Misdreavus/Umbreon, Forretress and Cloyster both kind of want leftovers for the spikes war, so that leaves Gengar and boom Snorlax??
On the opposite end of the scale, Marowak would HATE to lose Thick Club, Zapdos and especially Raikou lose a lot of their demi-god walling status when they're suddenly cleanly 3HKOd by neutral special attacks, Skarmory being forced to rest much earlier than otherwise is a thorn in its side, and so on.

What are your thoughts? If you're given the choice, what loses its item on your team?

Also discuss the merits of Thief on various Pokémon. Skarmory is the most common user, but Nidoking, Exeggutor, Gengar and Misdreavus all have some business using it, and then there's Porygon2 and maybe Machamp on top. Who'd you consider running Thief on?

 

[BKC]

My best team has two thief users and it is really fun. Words can't describe how satisfying it is to steal skarm's lefties with eggy before switching to nidoking and taking em from zap/lax. I don't like giving up any aspect of nidoking's coverage like tiba did to keep lovely kiss when he ran it, iirc he dropped thunder and ended up struggling a bit against skarm lol, so I use a sleep move elsewhere. I've got hypno gar on the same team but lk lax is the obvious candidate. I'm now thinking about dropping egg's giga drain for sleep powder though.

I have faced a thief gengar and it was pretty annoying. It mainly nails raikou and some lax obv but I figure taking lefties from ttar/steelix would be really good for non-eq lax or even like espeon/alakazam. I then glanced back at the op and realized gar was mentioned but I'm keeping this because I thought it was really cool when I played it.

 

[Bedschibaer]

What's so great about thief is that it is so unexpected because it is so rare. The most effective way to use thief in my opinion is to hit it on an electric to force them to rest or wear them down quickly to go to town with something like Vaporeon, Nidoking, etc. Even though thief skarm is not unheard of people will not hesitate to switch in their electric into it, so that makes it fairly abusable.
Thief Missy might be one of my favourite mons to use as of late because it draws in phazers, giving you opportunities to beat them and win with some sort of setupsweeper. Missy thiefs Steelix - Steelix can't check Snorlax anymore apart from booming on it, especially with spikes down. Missy thiefs Skarmory - Snorlax has more opportunities to break it. Missy thiefs Raikou - it gets forced to rest faster, it will struggle to check special threats in the long run. Etc, etc.

Generally i'd say Thief is a good support option for offensive threats, but it won't really make an effective enough play to build your whole team around. Thief skarm is good support if you run a team that wants to wear down the electrics, but you will miss out on curse so make sure it's not mandatory. Thief eggy is good support for grounds like Marowak, but you are missing out on a move that could otherwise be more useful (powder, spore, giga drain). I once played with the idea of thief stall to speed up residual damage of toxic and spikes, since those go ridiculously well with thief in general, but it ended up being really mediocre. Good option when it fits, but not a catch-all move.

 

[Jorgen]

When fighting Thief I generally want to use an Electric to absorb it. If there's multiple Thief users on a team, odds are they're all going to attract Electric-type switch-ins, so you can use that to minimize the Thief spread. Plus, speedy Sleep Talking Electrics (especially Zapdos due to the Spikes immunity) generally function very well even without Lefties.

Egg is probably the best Thief user because he forces both Zapdos and Raikou to switch out eventually due to the Psychic 3HKO, which in turn lets Sleep Powder do something consequential. Gengar is okay, especially if he catches Lax/Ttar/Steelix, but he struggles to make anything happen against Raikou. Thief Missy just doesn't seem worth it to me; sure, you get a subtle advantage from the surprise, but no Ptrap on Missy means you're basically down half a mon yourself. Thief Skarm is okay but mostly because his 4th is generally inconsequential anyway. Nido is actually not bad because he gets a second Thief past both Raikou and Zapdos. Pgon 2 is interesting for a similar reason. Electabuzz can use Thief too if you're gimmicking and using an all-Thief team.

OH I just realized. Umbreon really just kinda laughs at Thief strats. Blissey too to a certain extent.

 

[Borat]

see i'm on the complete opposite side. depending on what kind of team you're running, zapdos is generally my 2nd to last preferred non-lefties holder (after snorlax). ideally, you want things like blissey or starmie to take the hit. seeing as they're not extremely popular pokemon anyway, you'll probably end up losing lefties on something else. imo expendable pokemon are the ones you want to be taking the hit. zapdos has extreme longevity due to its ability to force switches, therefore benefiting from lefties recovery more than other pokemon. stuff like cloyster tend to be on a clock anyway, so once you set spikes you're kinda good to go. lasting an extra 1-2 turns is hardly relevant.

what "expendable" means tend to differ from game to game, but electrics are rarely what i'd consider expendable. nor stuff like snorlax/steelix. lefties is pretty crucial for zapdos to hold its own against stuff like gengar/egg/nidoking/vaporeon/other zapdos. the difference between a lefties zap and a non-lefties zap is rather substantial from experience. zapdos tends to be one of those pokemon that tends to flirt with the line between being able to wall a pokemon and not, where even losing bulk due to running hp water is noticeable. where things like blissey will wall special pokemon regardless, zapdos definitely doesn't fall into that category. raikou perhaps a bit more, but if you're stealing from raikou, you probably should have a plan on capitalizing on a "crippled" raikou.

therefore, i don't think egg is the "best" thief user. the best one is clearly "it depends". thief functions similar to explosion, where baiting plays a big part. plenty of things run thief, so thief from things that set up other pokemon on your team. you'd be surprised how easy it is to wear down a skarm/zap without lefties. lefties is make or break on a lot of walls (not blissey).

if you steal from raikou without anything to capitalize, then sure, raikou is a good "absorber". but let me direct you to my guides.

edit: two types of thiefs: filler move thiefs vs tactical thiefs. make yours the latter. don't make it a nuisance as much as a strategy. if you're running thief skarm, make sure it isn't because skarm has 3-move syndrome, but rather your team is filled with anti-electric shit. thief is essentially a 6% boost in power to 2hko moves, a 14% boost to 3hko moves, a 20% boost to 4hko moves, and a 25% to 5hko moves. clearly 3hko [and 4hko] moves are the sweet spot... and most attacks tend to fall into that range. 33% for a 3hko from 38% is gamebreaking.

 

[Mr.E]

I don't like losing Leftovers on Zapdos since it's just barely bulky enough WITH Leftovers to avoid a lot of 3HKOs, which is a big part of what makes it so generally threatening. Raikou, being a bit more specialized, I don't think is hurt from losing Leftovers much at all. Ice neutrality, Electric resistance and +10 base SpD still make Raikou more difficult to break on the special side and it never really wants to sit in front of the heavy physical attackers which Zapdos handles so much better (who can 4HKO Snorlax with Thunder and resists all of Heracross / Machamp / Marowak's STAB attacks). Zapdos is immune to spikes though, helping to mitigate the impact if it does get its Leftovers stolen, so that's cool.

I don't like Thief as a rule though. Losing the moveslot tends to be a much bigger downside than stealing your opponent's Leftovers is an upside, even if you hit the target you were hoping for which isn't guaranteed. Marowak is the only exception but that shit never works anyway. Skarmory's the only mon really equipped to get a Thief off on Marowak, but Marowak is going to switch out of a fresh Skarm anyway and the moment you take damage from anything else your cover's blown by lack of Leftovers recovery. Curse Skarm itself is already the single best option at answering Marowak besides Thief, while being a lot more useful in other regards.

Thief Perish Trapper is the best I heard in here, since my biggest gripe about using a typical Perish Trap Missy on teams is that its lack of direct damage marginalizes Spikes damage (phaser switches in and Lefties cancels out the Spikes damage by the time Missy is phazed out). Even then, you still have other options. Even just among anti-phazing moves, Tbolt is better against Skarm/Suicune in particular and Confuse Ray has a much bigger payoff when it works. (Then of course there's Destiny Bond, which is sorta the anti-Pursuit analog and sometimes it's just a nice pocket move to have.)

 

[Borat]

that's true. thief missy can get it from steelix pretty frequently. and a steelix without leftovers is... basically a forretress?

but that's at the expense of game breaking cheese sets like cray/attract, or the infinitely unpursuitable pain-split variant, or the auto-win vs skarm only phaze teams.

ps. missy isn't half as good as what the last statement makes her out to be. honestly though if you're gonna run missy for the sake of crippling a steelix, you might as well run something else cause it's clearly a pretty flexible slot. like espeon. or meganium. i dont even